The Joe Franklin Show in 1986

Forty years ago Joe Franklin was the King of Late Night NYC television. Sure, there was Johnny and Dave but Joe was our hometown guy. 

Take this walk down memory lane to 1986, when Joe got all kinds of oddballs and legends on his 1 AM show. 

Classic Mr NYC

Fifteen years ago this week Occupy Wall Street began. I blogged about it extensively at the time -- yes, I've been doing this that long -- and now what was real time coverage has turned into a piece of NYC and American history. You can read the entire Mr NYC OWS Archive if you'd like!

And you call also listen to this interview with the great late-night NYC cable TV host Robin Byrd and also read my own extensive archive of her. 

Dave Kendall RIP

Back in the 1980s and '90s, when MTV was actually a music channel, they had programs that showcased different kinds of music like Yo MTV Raps, the metal show Headbangers ball, and 120 Minutes that focused on "alternative" music and grunge.

120 Minutes was created by a guy named Dave Kendall who was actually a music journalist. The show as on late Sunday nights for, you guessed it, two hours, and Kendall hosted it for a few years. 

And on the night of September 29, 1991 -- just as I was starting my freshman year of high school -- Kendall hosted the premiere of a music video called "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by the band Nirvana. At that moment it might have seemed like a it was just another video and song by just another band but this moment would change music and cultural history forever. 

Dave Kendall has passed at the age of 68. RIP.

Robin Byrd Bangs Again!

Damn, never though I'd see this: there's an upcoming HBO documentary about naughty NYC late-night cable TV host Robin Byrd who ran her stripper/adult star-filled show from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

And it's called, haha, Bang My Box.

Robin was an "Only in New York" type, a former adult star who appeared in Debbie Does Dallas and who, along with Al Goldstein, brought "the sexy" and scandalous to NYC week-after-week in those pre-Internet/social media days. I remember watching Robin regularly during my high school years (and then in repeats for years afterwards) and she was truly a, uh, needed night cap.

I've blogged about Robin over the years, including back in 2009! And I interviewed former Robin Byrd guest, former adult star Hyapatia Lee, back in 2019. And now ... mainstream culture has caught up with Mr NYC, giving us this documentary about this NYC icon (believe it or not, it's produced by Sarah Jessica Parker), and proving, yet again, that Mr NYC is Ahead of His Time.

I'm looking forward to seeing this doc and also feel, quite smugly, that I recognized Robin's cultural significance much earlier than anyone else! 

Postscript: Robin's show ended in April, 1999, just weeks before I graduated from college and two years before 9/11. It felt like, feels like, the end of old NYC and my childhood. Le sigh. 

The Ed Sullivan Theater Goes Dark

Stephen Colbert signed off The Late Show last night and now, after 33 years, one of the big 11:30 PM talk shows is gone. I attended a taping of the show back in 2018 and blogged about it at the time.

It's sad to think that all of the talent and energy I saw that day is now gone. Colbert and this show deserved better but the monsters who now run CBS decided, in the most cowardly way possible, to censor him for political reasons.

So it goes.

The Late Show ran for all 33 years from The Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway and 53rd Street. The theater was, in many ways, the first sign of the theater district and the entire Times Square area. When you came upon it you it was like the theater was welcoming you to the cultural heart of NYC -- and America.

I didn't spend a lot of time in the theater district as a kid but I remember that when I was there I would pass The Ed Sullivan Theater which, at the time, had a big black and white marquee. It would announce various taping for various shows -- including the 1980s sitcom Kate & Allie. Often the theater would lie empty and it looked a little run down. It just seemed to sit there -- it's amazing history as the place where Ed Sullivan changed the culture with the Beatles and numerous other artists long in the past.

Then, in 1993, it found its second life.

David Letterman started The Late Show that year and it once again became a massive cultural hub, basically the nerve center for NYC cultural hub. I was in high school at the time and it was really exciting! The theater screamed "New York!" to the rest of America -- and the rest of America loved it. 

And now it's all over.

The Ed Sullivan Theater is once again just sitting there empty. It's gone dark. So far there are apparently now plans to use it for anything again. That would be tragic. It's a beautiful space in the heart of Manhattan and it let it wither would be criminals. But since our country is being run and owned by criminals, I don't hold out hope.

Light a candle for the Ed Sullivan Theater. It needs the love.

Review: "Hair" (1979)

Recently I came upon an article in the Hollywood Reporter listing 47 iconic movie and TV sites in NYC. Read it here. (Why it's not an even 50, I can't say.) 

One location that's obviously cited is Central Park which has been used in too many movies and TV shows to count. But one of movies that's not on this list but that makes great use of nation's most famous urban park is Hair from 1979. 

Based on the late 1960s anti-war, anti-establishment hippie Broadway smash, it's about a young man named Claude from Oklahoma who comes to NYC on his way to enlist in the army before shipping to Vietnam. (Why a guy from Oklahoma would need to travel all the way to NYC to go into the army is odd but, hey, it's a movie). Anyhoo, while roaming around Central Park one afternoon he comes upon a group of hippies who befriend him and rock his world. He also gets close to a young beautiful society lady who is bored by her preppy boyfriend and upper class life. Eventually it all goes haywire and Claude goes into the army -- before his friends head out to Nevada, trying to rescue him from going to Vietnam. There's a big, surprising, ultimately tragic twist at the end about the randomness of friendship and fate.

When the musical Hair hit Broadway in 1968, it was a stunning, crazy, and almost dangerous thing. America was mired in the hopeless Vietnam war and the anti-war, hippie movement was gaining steam (Woodstock would be a year later). This musical rocked the culture, a show that was both highly political and highly entertaining -- plus, at various points, the cast members took their clothes off. Richard Nixon, right after he became President, imagined that he'd go to a show and, as soon as cast got naked, he'd get up and walk out, showing his solidarity with the Silent Majority, the squares in the "real America" (fortunately he never did it although it would have been lit). Like A Chorus Line, Rent and Hamilton later on, this show defined its time. 

But when the movie came in 1979, times had changed. Vietnam was over, Watergate and stagflation had and were traumatized the nation, and this movie already seemed like a museum piece. It was of and about another time. Hair the movie was moderately successfull but didn't have the same resonance as it had had on Broadway 11 years earlier. 

The movie was directed by Milos Forman, who had just won Oscars for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and would, later on, do so again for Amadeus. Hair is somewhat forgotten from his filmography. The cast is amazingly -- especially a young Treat Williams (RIP) as George, the hippie leader, and Beverly D'Angelo, the bored young deb. Claude is played by John Savage who had just had a huge success in The Deer Hunter. He's a good actor but rather miscast -- he's not really believable as a young Okie. The rest of the mostly unknown cast is quite good, including the late, wonderful Nell Carter singing in the park at night.

Still, there's something about the movie that sorta doesn't work -- it reminds me of the Rent musical, a great, brilliant show put to film that somehow, someway, sucks the life out of the story and score. But I still suggest seeing it for the music, the cast, and beautiful shot Central Park. 

NYC Back in the Day

The thing about NYC is that it's a city with a fascinating past but that is always,  relentlessly, looking into the future. And Mr NYC tries to be as future-oriented as possible, following the trajectory of the greatest city on earth.

But ... the past never fully vanishes. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, we are always going against the current, "borne back ceaselessly into the past."

To put it another way, people will always be fascinated by NYC back in the day.

So here are some various examples.

Nostalgia for NYC back in the day is so huge that there's literally an entire Youtube Channel called ... NYC Nostalgia. It has numerous videos chronicling life in NYC in the last couple of decades and centuries, including about things you might not necessarily realize existed. For example, did you know there were motorcycle gangs all over NYC? Yes, there were, as this video shows:

Then there's the money. Yes, NYC was built by great wealth and generated great wealth. Heck, there's an entire show about it called The Guilded Age about the late-19th century when NYC's wealth changed the entire nation.

Sometimes this wealth produced great things and sometimes ... not so much.

This was true even before the Gilded Age, before families like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers -- families that name many of our streets like the Astors, the Jeromes, the Schermerhorns, the Delanceys, and many others. Here's a great video about some of these families that used to rule NYC back in the day, the original city elite:

And then there's the darkness. Look at this photo taken in October 2001 at Ground Zero, a month after 9/11:

Ouch. You got then-Commissioner Bernard Kerik who ended up going to jail for corruption (and is now deceased). It includes then-Mayor Rudy Giuilani who later committed treason but trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and wound up broke, indicted and disgraced. And then there's the now former Prince Andrew, who's been arrested for corruption and settled a mult-million dollar sexual abuse lawsuit. The photo above was taken only six or seven months after this infamous photo:

The then-prince was in NYC at that time to pay his respects to the families whose loved-ones has perished, to visit and thank the first responders for their work, and extend sympathy to a traumatized city. 

It appears that, during this visit to NYC, in the aftermath of this horrific event, Prince Andrew came to town not only to provide comfort but also to do some partying with Russian broads. Watch this video about Andrew's 9/11 jaunt, it'll both fascinate and disgust you:

And to think that these dark people were the ones taking care of NYC at this dark time only makes the darkness even darker -- darkness on top of darkness. And today when we see images of the now former prince, this is what we see:

But let's end this look at NYC back in the day on a happier, funnier note.

In the early 1980s, as Saturday Night Live was transitioning out of its '70s heyday, the show went into a critical and ratings downturn -- and flirted with cancellation. But it was saved by a 19-year old kid who was still living with his parents in Brooklyn named Eddie Murphy. His comic brilliance was so blazing, so wild and fascinating, that he saved the show that has lasted for half-a-century. When SNL started back in the day it was a curiousity -- a quirky, funky 1970s late-night sketch show from NYC. But Eddie Murphy turned it into an institution that defines the city and its impact on American culture to this day. 

By the way, you can watch one of Eddie Murphy's funniest "Mister Robinson's Neighborhood" sketches below and the entire archive for your enjoyment here. 

The Scandalous Death of a NYC Vice-President

On this date 47 years ago, the 41st Vice-President of the United States, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, died of a heart attack. He was 70.

"Rocky", as he was known, was the scion of one of the richest families on Earth, and had been the governor of New York State from 1959 to 1973. His legacy in this city and state was significant, as I blogged about many years ago. In 1974 he became Vice-President after President Nixon had resigned and Gerald Ford became president. Rockefeller left office in 1977 and returned to NYC.

Two years later he was dead.

On the night of January 26, 1979, it was announced, as you'll see below, that he had died in his office at Rockefeller Center while working on a book in the presence of his bodyguard.

Ehhh ... not really.

Actually Rocky was in an East Side townhouse that he owned with his secretary Megan Marshack. This townhouse appears to have been a very classy love nest. Rocky and Megan were banging on the floor -- apparently she was riding him cowgirl when the old man had a heart attack. Now she obviously should have called 911 right away as that might have saved his life. But no. Instead she made a series of phone calls to her psychiatrist and her friend who rushed over to the townhouse. Together, apparently, they got Rocky dressed and then the friend called 911. But it was too late. The mighty Rocky -- billionaire, governor, Vice-President, titan of his times -- had died in the most tawdry way possible.

For days and weeks afterwards the scandal fascinated the NYC tabloids. But then ... it just kind of petered out. 

The Rockefeller's used their wealth and power to cover it up quite effectively. Rocky was creamated the very next day so no autopsy was performed. Megan Marshak, and presumably her friend, signed NDAs and were probably paid off. Also, it helped that at the same time this scandal was unfolding there was a revolution going on in Iran and that grabbed the headlines. And, of course, Rocky was out of office so this incident had no real political implications.

There were no criminal charges. No arrests. No lawsuits. No legal actions of any kind. No tell-all books or teary interviews or multi-part true crime documentaries. 

Amazingly, Megan Marshak remained quiet until her death in October 2024. She lived a relatively productive, and regular life. She worked at CBS News in NYC for almost 20 years before moving to Calfornia and living there until her death. She married later in life, had no children, and died in relative obscurity. Interestingly she was also 70 years old when she died, the same age as the great man she shtupped to death.

Half a century later, most New Yorkers probably haven't heard of Nelson Rockefeller much less the scandalous way that he left this mortal coil.

Review: "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999)

The news that Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman is getting her second divorce made my mind race back to the early 2000s when she divorced movie star Tom Cruise.

In the 1990s "Tom and Nic" were the biggest celebrity couple in the world. Great actors, huge stars, they made lots of big hit movies (A Few Good Men, Jerry McGuire, To Die For, and many others), and they also made three together, including their last and most notable one, Eyes Wide Shut in 1999. 

I remember when news of this movie was announced. It was a big deal -- the biggest movie star couple in the world making a movie with one of the greatest directors of his time, the Bronx-born Stanley Kubrick. They were making a weird movie, in secret, in England, and no one knew anything about it. The entertainment media of the day was fascinating by what this movie would be -- and the secrecy of its making and content became its currency.

There was also a lot of other drama surrounding Eyes Wide Shut.

A noted perfectionist, Stanley Kubrick spent almost two full years shooting the movie -- keeping these two huge stars off screens and out of other movies, much to the industry's consternation. Various actors kept getting hired, then fired, or replaced because the open-ended schedule made their continued participation impossible. The movie was supposed to be released in late 1998 -- then was bumped to the summer of 1999 where it would compete with the big action movies.

Then, the biggest dramatic moment of all -- in the Spring of 1999, just a few months before the movie's release, Stanley Kubrick died. Suddenly. So this secret movie with the two biggest starts in the world would be the last movie from the directors of Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket. Wow! 

Then, in July 1999, after all the hype, after reams and reams, hours and hours of coverage, the movie comes out and ... no one cares. It dies quickly. And more than 25 years later it's forgotten -- except for being the last hurrah for Tom and Nic. There divorce two years later would be its coda. 

So what's Eye's Wide Shut about? I still don't know. 

It takes place in Manhattan during Christmas time. Cruise is a wealthy, successful doctor, with a gorgeous, very bored housewife played by Nic. One night they go to a party, flirt with other people, then go home where Nic confesses her fantasies about sleeping with other men. Tom is horrified -- so he goes out walking the strees of wintertime NYC. He meets a friend of his who works in a piano bar and he tells Tom about a masked orgy out of Long Island where the friend plays the piano during all the nooky. Tom decides to go out to Long Island, puts on a Venetian mask, and witnesses all the nooky -- before he's found out, humiliated, ejected from the orgy, and made to fear for his life.

And there's something about hookers in the meantime too.

I love, love, love Stanley Kubrick's films but this one was boring, and his weakest effort. There's really no story, and you're not made to care about any of the characters. It's visually amazingly and it's more like an early-sound European movie than a modern organic film. 

When this movie was being made, and stories about it kept appearing, I was in college, and remember being super excited to see it. Then I graduated, came home, saw the movie that summer ... and left totally underwhelmed. Looking at the movie decades later, it's still lifeless -- and even more depressing considering the horrors we've learned about sexual abuse by rich people in the wake of Jeffrey Epstein.

Still, Eyes Wide Shut is an interesting look at a filmmaker at the end of his life, making his oddest movie ever, in a make-believe NYC at night, with two huge movie stars whose marriage would soon end -- and would gone on to other great movies, as well as more divorces.  

Mr NYC Ahead of His Time

Recently I blogged about the decline of late night TV, especially here in NYC.

Now others are doing the same.

Again, Mr NYC is ahead of his time!

What Does AI Think of Mr NYC?

Last year I asked Chat GPT to describe this blog. You can read it here.

And now I've asked Grok and Google AI to describe this blog and got the following:

Google AI:

The blog mrnyc.blogspot.com is a "fun, upbeat, and thoughtful blog about this great city". It aims to capture the "soul of the world's greatest city" and is described as "part of the NYC underground". The blog appears to cover various aspects of New York City life and culture. The author, sometimes identified as [REDACTED], maintains an active presence on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @MrNYCBlog and Facebook. The blog has been running for almost two decades and has reached a considerable milestone, having been clicked on over a million times.

Grok:

The website https://mrnyc.blogspot.com/ is a blog titled "Mr NYC," dedicated to capturing the spirit and culture of New York City. It describes itself as "Blogging the soul of the world's greatest city. Part of the NYC underground. Feel free to comment!" The blog covers a wide range of topics related to NYC, including its history, culture, media, politics, and notable figures, often with a personal and opinionated perspective.

Key points about the blog based on its content: 

• Focus: It explores various aspects of NYC life, from apartment living and late-night television to local politics and cultural events. Posts often reflect on the city's unique character, its underground scene, and its historical significance.
  
  
• Content Style: The blog combines personal anecdotes, cultural commentary, and critiques of current events. For example, it discusses the significance of NYC in late-night TV history, the impact of apartment living, and political developments like the NYC mayoral race.
  
  
• Recent Posts: As of July 31, 2025, recent posts include discussions about Awkwafina and Marc Maron talking about Queens, the history of NYC apartment living, the decline of late-night TV in NYC, and political commentary on the NYC mayoral election.
  
  
• Social Media Presence: The blog has associated social media accounts, as mentioned in a post encouraging readers to explore its "multi-tentacled" digital presence.
  
  
• Tone and Perspective: The author often takes a critical stance, particularly towards political and economic issues, as seen in posts criticizing corporate influence in politics and media, and expressing frustration with figures like Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Cuomo.

The blog is hosted on Blogspot and has been active for years, with posts referencing earlier writings (e.g., a 2018 post about a Stephen Colbert show taping). It positions itself as an independent voice in the NYC cultural landscape, often highlighting lesser-known or nostalgic aspects of the city.

NYC Makes & Late Night Takes

I remember it well: in early 1993, shortly after Bill Clinton took office as President, David Letterman dramatically announced his departure from NBC and his 12:30 AM show Late Night to go host the 11:30 PM Late Show on CBS.

America waited with baited breath: would the quintessential NYC late night host pull up stakes and move his new show in a better time slot on another network to LA?

In the end, Dave stayed put, moving into the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway and making NYC a late night powerhouse for the first time since the 1960s -- and for the next 32 years. 

Part of the reason he stayed is that then-NYC Mayor David Dinkins moved heaven and earth to keep the Letterman show here. And when Letterman retired in 2015, CBS was bribed to keep his replacement Stephen Colbert in NYC with generous tax breaks. The same thing had happened in 2014 to move the Tonight Show back to NYC. 

We, the taxpayers of NYC, basically financed late night TV. 

And now ... the show has been cancelled, late night TV is in freefall -- and got stuck with the bill! All of that revenue that might have come into NYC without these tax breaks are gone -- and can never be recovered.

So when we hear scary stuff about "socialism" just remember -- we already have socialism but it's for the rich and big corporations ... and not for the rest of us.

Late Night in Winter

Late night television was born in NYC.

When the Tonight Show with Steve Allen premiered in 1954, it created a whole new world, not only for television, but for the entire culture. Late night TV was a America's bedtime story. During his 30-year reign as host of the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson was the nation's comforter-in-chief. In the years and decades since, so many other late night shows and hosts have come and gone that it's hard to keep track. And, of course, late night TV extended for beyond NYC, into "beautiful downtown Burbank" and the West Coast.

But late night TV has always been, at heart, a New York City thing. Like the city itself, it's always been a little edgy, a little nasty, a little smartass, a little offbeat, and yet always had a big welcoming heart.

Think Letterman. Think Jon Stewart. 

So it's a sad occasion that the Late Show with Stephen Colbert has been cancelled. In May 2026 it will end completely. Its network, CBS, is getting out of the late night business altogether. The reasons for this cancellation are, according to CBS, purely financial. But it's entirely possible that it was done to help grease the wheels of a huge merger that is taking place between CBS and Skydance. Skydance is owned by ultra-Republican billionaire Larry Ellison and Colbert used his show daily to bash Trump. Ending the show not only saves CBS money but also appeases the FTC to approve the merger, as well as Larry Ellison's ego (it's rumored that he'll turn CBS into another Fox News).

The financial and the political are, let's face it, one and the same. One hand washes the other. Power speaks to power. 

Also, the economics of late night TV awful: the Tonight Show is down to four nights a week, Late Night lost its band, other late night shows have been cancelled and not replaced, it's a shrinking, dying breed. People would rather watch streaming or YouTube or watch their phones. Who needs late night TV?

But it's a sad moment for late television, for the culture, and for NYC. Something has been lost, never to be replaced. We'll remember late night TV the same way some people remember cigarette ads on TV or other cultural ephemera. Gone, but not forgotten.

P.S. the Colbert show is the only late night show that I went to a taping of, and I wrote about it briefly in 2018. 

Remembering "Night After Night with Allan Havey" (1989-1992)

The late night television talk show has been a staple of American life ever since Steve Allen launched The Tonight Show in NYC in 1954. Over the decades the names of late night hosts became staples of American culture: Carson, Letterman, Leno, and Stewart ruled the late night airways collectively for over half a century, and their replacements -- Fallon, Kimmel, Colbert, and ... Stewart -- have all dominated late night TV for over a decade now. 

In those same decades there have been lots of other talk shows that have come and gone -- Merve Griffen, Dick Cavett, Conan, Corden, and many others. Up until a few years ago there was a glut of late night shows until economic pressures led to many of them being cancelled. Even the big late night shows are in decline -- their ratings are way down, their doing fewer shows per week, their losing their bands, and they no longer have the kind of agenda-setting, social currency that they used to have.

But thirty-odd years ago, the late night landscape was very different. It was the time of the big transition from the 30-plus year reign of Johnny Carson to the duopoy of Leno and Letterman.

It was also the time when Arsenio Hall -- young, loud, black, and wild -- challenged the white-guy late night establishment and created memorable TV moments, including then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton playing the saxaphone and then getting elected president. Late night TV was a hot place, and it seemed like it was the pulse of American culture.

One totally forgotten late night show from that time was Night After Night with Allan Havey. It ran on Comedy Central (first called the Comedy Channel) from 1989 to 1992 and was really different and quite original. 

Coming several years before the start of The Daily Show, Night After Night was a largely tradditional talk show except for some big differences. Allen would begin each show sitting at his desk and, instead of the regular monologue, he'd just talk and riff. It was more like the opening to a radio show than a TV show but he did it really well and was very funny. Then he'd interview his guests and the conversations were much more interesting than anything you'd hear on the late night shows. This show obviously ran many years before podcasts but his interviews were more in-depth and podcast-like than anything else at the time. Also, he played a constant gag on the audience -- his studio audience literally consisted of one person, his "audience of one", usually someone visiting NYC.

Night After Night was a calm, smart, funny show that was, quite frankly, a relief from the raucous, loud, and sometimes quite dumb late night shows. And it was really New York, almost like a late-night Manhattan cable access show brought into the mainstream. 

I remembering watching this show in high school and enjoyed it a lot. I remember on the night that Johnny Carson retired in 1992, they simply paused the show so that everyone else could watch it, and instead just showed an advertisement for Tabasco the whole time. I remember he interviewed the lady who played (and still plays) Lisa Simpson who talked about how many times she had turned eight on the show. And I remember this episode from 1992 when he interviewed an actress/comedien named Stephanie Hodge who was the star of a Saturday night sitcom on NBC called Nurses (a spinoff of another show called Emptyness that was itself a spinoff of The Golden Girls). It aired in the summer of that year, just before I started 10th grade -- and just months before Night After Night was cancelled, and Stephanie Hodges was fired from Nurses. 

Many other late night shows have obviously come and gone since Night After Night was cancelled -- and Allan Havey has gone on to have a great career as an actor, including appearing on Mad Men. But there's never quite been another late night show like this, a really funky NYC show, and so Mr NYC is happy to remember this little piece of NYC late-night culture from a very different time.

The Lost Palaces Down by the Riverside ... Drive

If I had the cash to build a palace, I'd build it in a great city by a river.

Imagine living in a huge home, gilt and elegance everywhere, looking out the window and seeing a brilliant cityscape, and then looking out another window and seeing a big placid stream of water.

How lovely, how mesmerizing, how ... rich.

This is not, obviously, an original idea to me. There have been several historic palaces built next to rivers in great cities but today, sadly, most of them are gone.

And here in NYC, we also have phantom riverside palaces -- the lost mansions that used to exist on Riverside Drive in Manhattan.

But foist, to history!

In London, in the medieval era, there was a huge palace on the banks of the River Thames in London called the Savoy Palace. It was huge, gorgeous, and absolutely screamed of power and wealth. Unsurprisingly it was owned by the then-royal family of England, the Plantagenets. Its last resident was John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, and an important political and military leader of his time -- a kind of guy-behind-the-guy, a Bismark or James Baker or Tywin Lannister kind of guy.

But tragedy befell the Savoy Palace in 1381 when, during the Peasants Revolt, it was burned down, totally destroyed (John of Gaunt had levied a very unpopular tax on the peasants and the peasants let him know what they thought of it). A smart politician, John didn't rebuild the palace -- instead, he made tax reforms and quelled the rebellion, restoring peace.

John of Gaunt is also the grandfather of every British monarch since Henry IV. John and his longtime-mistress/last wife, the gorgeous and amazing Kathrine Swynford, had four kids. John of Gaunt's riverside palace may not have survived but his DNA sure does!

Moving down to Paris, on the right back of the River Seine, used to stand the Tuilleries Palace. It was one of many residences of the French Kings and it was actually built by the great Queen Catherine de Medici herself. The French Kings before the 1789 didn't actually live there much (they soon headed out to Versailles) but in the 19th century it was used by the short-lived monarchs Louise-Phillipe and Louise Napoleon.

But the Tuilleries Palace became another victim of mass fervor when, during the Paris Commune of 1871, it was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. Now it's a massive public park, the Tuilleries Gardens, where families stroll and couples go to ... French.

Sidenote: a forgotten historical figure named Prince Phillipp of Saxe Coburg Gotha was born in the Tuilleries Palace in 1844. He was the brother-in-law and best friend of the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary who, along with a couple of others, discovered Rudolf and his dead mistress at Mayerling in January, 1889. Philipp is an intriguing, pivotal character in Episode 4 of Fall of Eagles (see below, it's an amazing episode). Phillipp also put his crazy cheating wife (who was also his cousin) in an insane assylum and fought a duel with her lover that he lost, and then divorced her. During Word War 1, his son was killed when his son's mistress threw acid in his face. He had a life of both great privilege and great tragedy, an example of late 19th century/early 20th century European monarchy that vanished with the war.   

Then there's the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. Built by the insanely wealthy and noble Yusupov family on the banks of the Moika River. It was as huge, as gorgeous, as jaw-droppingly splendid as any palace ever built anywhere. It was (literally) a shining example of Tsarist Russia -- the kind of place that represented everything that the Communists hated and wanted to destroy.

Amazingly, however, the Communists didn't destroy it after the 1917 Russian revolution. It was too big, too impressive, and too useful to destroy. Instead, the Yusopov family fled Russia and the Communists turned into a ministry. Now its a museum. But even though this riverside palace still exists, it's still a phantom -- no one lives there, its original use abandoned, a curiosity of history and not a living part of it.

But what's most interesting about this palace is that while it's huge and gorgeous and an architectural marvel, its best known for something that happened in a basement room in the palace late at night on December 30, 1916. That's the night that Prince Felix Yusupov and his friends killed the mysterious and fake holy man/Tsarist whisperer and advisor Rasputin. They fed him poisoned cakes and wine and, when those failed to kill him, shot him. Rasputin managed to flee outside of the palace where Yusupov and his friends shot him again. Then they chained him up and drove him outside St. Petersburg where they dumped his body into another river. And while Yusopov and his friends thought killing Rasputin would save the Russian monarchy, it was in fact the moment when its doom was sealed.

Okay, so we've delved into history of some of the riverside palaces in London, Paris and St. Petersburg. Let's come home to NYC.

And here you can learn all about the huge, beautiful mansions -- some of them almost as big and gorgeous as palaces -- that were built in the 19th-century on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Obviously no nobles or royals built or lived in them, but they were examples of the Gilded Age, of New Money, of trying to show their European counterparts that they could build great homes as grand as anything in the Old World. And Riverside Drive, that great stretch of road by the watery Western frontier of NYC, seemed like the perfect place.

Sadly, most of these mansions on Riverside Drive are gone today. A couple still exist but, during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, their wealthy residents could no longer afford their upkeep and sold them to developers. The new owners proceeded to knock them down and build apartment buildings -- some quite splendid themselves but not quite as interesting as the mansions they replaced. 

This documentary below about the lost mansions, the lost palaces, of Riverside Drive tells the story about ten of these long-gone gems.

And I have a personal interest in this -- one of the mansions mentioned in this documentary was replaced by the building that I grew up in myself and where my family still owns the apartment.

So yeah ... I kinda-sorta-but-not-really-but-want-to-believe that I grew up and lived for years in a kinda-sorta-palace on the riverside of a great city.

And that I have a some stuff in common with other previous residents of riverside palaces, like personal intelligence and elegance, except for ... 

John of Gaunt; I mean this guy had it all -- money, power, a hot woman (and women), kids, bling -- I just wouldn't want to have my home burned down. 

... or Catherine de Medici but without all the killing. 

... or Prince Phillipp of Saxe Coburg Gotha but without putting my wife in a loonie bin or discovering my brother-in-law dead. 

... or Prince Felix Yusopov without killing a gross and weird holy man and then fleeing the country.

And if you want to just enjoy the beauty and impressive current day architecture of Riverside Drive, I strongly suggest taking a walk along this most amazing and unique of NYC thoroughfares. 

Classic Mr NYC

The one and only time that I've been to Los Angeles was in late March 1995. My brother was living there and I visited him during my Spring break. I was there for a week and we drove north with a friend and visited San Francisco and then drove back along the Pacific Coast Highway, visiting San Simeon and gorgeous Central Valley places like Monterrey and Carmel.

I blogged about it extensively in 2018. And I concluded the post about how, just before I boarded my flight back home to NYC, I spoke to my dad by phone, informing me of my college acceptance.

Something I didn't mention, however, because it was totally irrelevant, was that my last full night in LA was the same night as the 67th annual Academy Awards. It was the same night that Forrest Gump swept the Oscars but also when Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay for Pulp Fiction. 

So I was fascinated to stumble upon an article about the Oscar party held that night in LA by Harvey Weinstein and his company Miramax that had produced Pulp Fiction. Apparently, in a city and business known for wild parties, this was the wildest party in Oscar history. Many big stars at the time congregated, people got into fistfights, Harvey Weinstein threatened to go steal the Oscars from the Forrest Gump people -- and a wanted criminal crashed the party, apparently being persued by the cops while Hollywood partied.

It was, apparently, the last kind of wild, out-of-control Oscar party that Hollywood used to have. In the decades afterwards, the business and the parties became more sedate. And as you always see when you look at a moment frozen in time, some of the people at the party have continued to thrive -- like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jodie Foster, Samuel L Jackson -- while others -- like the host, Harvey Weinstein himself, and Kevin Spacey -- went into infamy ... and prison.

And to think that yours truly Mr NYC was in LA that night. Crazy. Only in the movies ...

P.S. This Oscars ceremony also had another NYC twist -- David Letterman was the host and he notoriously bombed. "Uma" ... "Oprah" ... "Uma" ... "Oprah."

Yeah, it didn't work. 

Review: "The Warriors" (1979) & "Warriors" (2024)

If there was ever a movie that epitomized the idea of a scary NYC-at-night hellscape, then it's The Warriors. Released in 1979 and directed by Walter Hill (a few years before his big Eddie Murphy star-making hit 48 Hours), The Warriors looks and feels almost as if aliens had invaded Earth and are fighting their intergalactic battle on the streets and subways of NYC.  

The movie takes place over the course of one night -- firmly, almost definitively placing itself in the realm of great NYC night movies.

The plot involves various gangs that have convened in Van Cortland park in the Bronx for a massive gang summit. One of them, the Warriors, has made the long trek from Coney Island to attend. The biggest gang leader in the city, Cyrus, announces to the amassed gangs that they should work together, respect each others turf, not kill each other, and use their collective power to overwhelm the police and control the city. He lays out his plan while, every so often, yelling "Can you dig it"? Dig it they do -- until a rival gang to the Warriors shoots Cyrus dead, turns around and blames the Warriors for the murder, and all hell breaks loose.

From there, the Warriors escape and start a long, violent trip back to Coney Island, chased by other gangs and the cops.

Knives and guns and mellees and Molotov cocktails frustrate their journey as they escape into Tremont, then 96th street and Broadway, in and out of Riverside Park, arriving later at Union Square, before finally making it back to Coney Island at early dawn -- only to find that they were still being persued by their rivals. Along the way they hook up with a hot chick (because, well, of course) and a radio DJ narrates their journey along the way. There's even a scene in the park that features a future Oscar-winner (but I won't give it away).

Can you dig it?

The Warriors had a completely unknown cast (some of whom went onto other movies but none who became huge stars) and was a modest box office hit at the time before becoming a cult classic. (Apparently at screenings in the early weeks of its release resulted in violent incidents from people trying to live out the action they were watching on screen.) Even though the book was based on a novel, the heart of the story comes from the Greek legend of the Odyssey, about how the path of humanity is just to go home. 

The Warriors is a wild, fun, and bizarre movie -- some of the fight scenes drag but they're never boring. The cast is young and colorful and full of energy. Most of all, it's the kind of dangerous, subversive movie that no major studio would dare make today. It's a movie in and of its time -- but its themes of youthful alienation and the allure of violence resonants into our day.

In fact, The Warriors resonates so much that Lin-Manuel Miranda himself decided to give it a musical adaptation.

Recently he released a "concept album" simply called Warriors, retelling the story of the movie with an all-female gang (there may be a stage version but that hasn't come to fruition yet). On the album, amongst others, are the featured voices are Marc Anthony, Billy Porter, Lauryn Hill, Hamilton's Phillipa Soo, Busta Rhymes, and Colman Domingo. I've only heard the album once but obviously it's good -- if not entirely memorable like Hamilton. 

So I highly suggest watching the movie and listening to the album and just be grateful that, in our day and age, if you get lost in NYC late at night you can just use your phone to get a cab.

When Howard Met OJ

OJ Simpson has died. 

If you're in my age-range then you remember his trial. Before Monica Lewinsky, before 9/11, before the Iraq War, before the Financial Meltdown, before Trump, before COVID, before any number of disasters and horrors, the late-1990s OJ Simpson case seemed like the most important thing going on in the country. 

I distinctly remember when, one night before I had a final high school exam, I saw a news report that OJ was being questioned in his ex-wife's murder. I barely knew who OJ was except that he was in the Naked Gun movies, was a sportscaster, and endorsed a lot of products on TV. Old as I am, I wasn't old enough to remember his 1970s glory days as a football star -- not that I would have cared then or now.

Anyway, I remember the night after I finished 11th grade, coming home at 8 in the morning from a party, going to sleep, and waking up to news that he was wanted in this murder. It sounded crazy but I didn't really pay that much attention to it. (We weren't living a world of constant screens or news or social media then). Later that night, sacked out on the couch, watching an episode of a dumb forgotten show called Burke's Law, the news broke in to cover the now infamous, historic Ford Bronco chase. I spent the rest of the night watching it, a truly surreal thing, and I was just glad that it didn't end in violence or a shootout. 

In many ways, the OJ chase and case was the first surreal episode of the last surreal 30 years.

Now think back to March of 1993, if you can (if weren't old enough, or alive, you're excused). Bill Clinton has just become president. The country is at peace. 

And radio host Howard Stern is the epitome of the "shock jock", the most outrageous mouth in America, and becoming a huge star.

Late during one show on a March day of 1993, OJ Simpson briefly dropped by the show. OJ was not a scheduled guest but he was in Howard's radio station because OJ was on the board of Howard's radio company and was there for a meeting.

Howard and his producer Baba Booey coaxed OJ to come on the air. They had a hilarious, lively, and racy conversation where Howard told OJ how smartly he had handled his career, how great he was in the Naked Gun movies, how good he looked for his age, and, naturally, about all the "hot broads" OJ was "nailin'."

"I've never been with that caliber of woman" Howard tells OJ about OJ's then model girlfriend -- a comment I'm sure Howard's then wife greatly appreciated. 

Some of this stuff is extremely creepy to listen to in retrospect: OJ talks about his recent divorce from his wife Nicole but declares that they have a "great realtionship." And after Howard talks about how awesome OJ and his life is, OJ simply says, "I'm having a good life."

Fifteen months later, that "good life" -- and American culture -- would change.

You can listen here to Howard's crazy interview with OJ followed by 9 hours of talk about the man, the murder, and the case that riveted the world. It's fascinating to hear how Howard, like America, went from lionizing OJ, to being incredulous at the thought he might be involved in this double homicide, to being 100% convinced of his guilt.  

Beyond his life, OJ's life feels like the end of some of kind of weird era, a kind of closure. The whole thing was and remains a tragedy. But, of course, Howard found some way to make it hilarious -- his conclusion, "White broads are nuthin' but trouble, damn my penis."

Memo from NYC

Great cities don't just have beautiful buildings, fun neighborhoods, vibrant economies, wonderful culture, and diverse populations -- they also produce fascinating people. 

New York City has produced so many such people over the centuries that it's impossible to fathom -- just look at this list and it'll blow your mind.

Recently I blogged about Marco Polo, the great Venetian explorer and chronicler. Venice is, obviously, one of the world's greatest cities -- a beautiful city of islands and business, just like NYC -- and not only did it produce history's most famous traveller, it also produced history's most famous lover -- Casanova.

And here's what's crazy to realize -- while Marco Polo lived in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, Casanova lived in the 18th century. That means there was a nearly five-hundred year difference between the lives of these two historic Venetians! And both men are my heroes because they did what any man would love to do -- travel the world, far and wide, and make love to numerous women.

What more could a man want in life?

So it made me happy to learn recently about another fascinating Venetian who lived between these two men -- and was a woman.

Veronica Franco was a 16th century poet and courtesan. She came from a modest, middle-class family in Venice, and into a world where the only thing expected of her was to get married. She did marry -- briefly -- and had several children, but she pursued a career as a high-class, intellectual courtesan in order to have her own money and control her own life. And while she was very beautiful, she was also so smart, so witty, and so intellectually vibrant that men not only paid for her sexual favors but also her company, her conversation, and her humor. 

She also published books of poetry, including one called Familiar Letters to Various People, which was dedicated to the Franch King Henry III (with whom she shared a night of passion and who subsequently gave Venice ships to protect the city from invasion).

Franco was popular but also hated by puritan factions and was eventually put on trial for witchcraft -- but acquitted. She was a fascinating, self-made woman, a real feminist trailblazer.

The legend of Veronica Franco has persisted to the point where, in 1998, a movie about her life was made called Dangerous Beauty. She wasn't royalty, she wasn't rich, she didn't travel far and wide, but she was a one-of-a-kind original, a fearless advocate for herself and all women, as well as fierce patriot of her city, and that's why she's remembered so many centuries after her death. 

P.S. If I had any playwrighting talent, I'd write one about Marco Polo, Veronica Franco, and Casanova meeting in heaven, discussing their amazing lives and life in Venice during their respective centuries. I'd call it the Venice Trio -- any playwright is free to take my bright idea and run with it (I just expect an invite to the premiere). 

RaiNYC

New York City got a lot of rain on the day of our lord, September 29, 2023.

Like, a lot, a lot 'o rain.

Apparently city officials of all stripes were yelling about it late Thursday night, early Friday morning when the extent of this was becoming clear. If you monitored social media, local elected reps were literally waist deep in water, trying to help their constituents. But the mayor ...

... well, rumor has it that, while Thursday night the city gubment was getting warning of a massive rainstorm headed our way, Mayor Eric Adams was out late at a club. No statement, no press conference, no plan. And he slept in Friday morning while the city was getting hit by a monsoon, the commute disrupted by flooding, all kinds of mess -- and he was nowhere to be seen or heard from for hours.

I blogged in August about what kind of Mayor Eric Adams is -- and, yet again, as this lack of response to this mess proves, I was ahead of time.